2^/ 


Duke  University  Libraries 

A  letter  on  the 
Conf  Pam  #638 

DTTDE1737 


ON     THE 

STATE     OF    THE    y^A.lR. 

BY  ONE  RECENTLY  RETURNED  FROM  THE  ENEMY'S  COUNTRY. 


I  was  .relc'ased  from  a  Yankee  prison  in  August  of  last  year,  and  for  four 
months  thereafter  resided  in  the  North  on  "u  parole  of  honour,  awaiting  my  ex- 
change. When  I  came  out  of  prison,,!  found  that  everywhere  the  thought  of 
the  North  was  peace;  not  so  much  in  the  newspapers,  whose  office,  especially 
with  the  Yankees,  is  rather  to  disguise  public  sentiment,  than  to  express  or 
apply  it;  but  in  every  circle  of  conversation,  and  every  quarter  where  men  dared  to 
unmask  their  minds  and  to  substitute  their  tx"ue  convictions  for  the  stereotypes 
of  affectation,  I  found  a  real  desire  for  peace,  which  had  almost  ripened  into  a 
popular  demand,  ready  to  define  its  terms  and  resolved  to  insist  upon  its  conces- 
sion. I-  can  recollect  how  I  then  burned  .to  be  in  Richmond,  to  proclaim  my 
convictions  and  to  open  my  budget  of  assurances ;  how  that  the  Chicago  Con" 
vention  meant  peace ;  how  that  this  and  that  man,  least  suspected  of  generosity 
to  the  Confederacy  or  of  deference  to  truth,  privately  confessed  the  war  to  be* 
failure;  how  that  even  Republicans  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  school,  seizing  upon  certain 
amiable  expressions  in  the  Confederate  Congress  of  last  summer,  wanted  to 
know  if  they  might  not  mean  some  accommodation  of  the  questions  of  the  wan 
and  replied  to  them  with  those  affectations  of  generosity  with  which  the  dexte- 
rous cowardice  of  the  Yj^nkee  is  always  ready  to  cover  his  sense  of  defeat. 

This  disposition  of  the  public  mind  in  the  North — then  a  great  surpriae  to 
me — was  easily  accounted  for,  when  it  was  closely  observed.  It  wa.s  clearly  not 
the  fruit  of  any  decisive  disasters  to  the  Northern  arms  in  the  Summer  cam- 
paign of  1864.  Bpt  that  campaign,  up  to  the  time  in  which  I  date  my  first 
obaervations  in  the  North,  had  been  negative.    Atlanta  had  not  fsUeo.     All 


the  enf?a"'eiueuts  iu  ^sortlieru  Georgia  had  dot  atuouuted,  as  Juhustou  >aid,  to 
the  sum  of  more  than  one  battle,  and  it  was  yet  doubtful  on  which  sid«  to  strikje 
the  average  of  success.  Richmond  was  erect -and  defiant;  and  Lee's  army  had 
given  new  and  conspicuous  proofs  of  fortitude,  at  Cold  Harbour  and  at  Peters 
buro-.  Nowhere,  as  yet,  could  the  enemy  find  any  prospect  of  the  speedy  ter. 
minatlon  of  the  war;  and  though  he  had  searched  every  link  of  the  armour  of 
the  Confederacy,  he  had  been  unable  to  plant  anywhere  a  serious  wound.  It-is 
true,  that  so  far  in  the  campaign,  the  enemy's  fortune  had  not  been  superiour  to 
ours  But  it  was  simply  because  it  was  thus  negative;  simply  in  prospect  of  a 
prolongation  of  the  war  that,  in  mid-summer  of  1864,  the  Yankee  public  halted 
in  its  opinions  aijd  seriously  meditated  a  proposition  of  peace.  ^ 

The  great  lesson  whicn  the  South  is  to  Iparn  of  public  opinion  in  the  North 
is  this:  that  the  prospect  of  a  long^war  is  quite  as  sure  to  obtain  the  success  and 
independeace  of  the  Confederacy,  as  the  positive  victories  of  her  arins.  It 
might  not  have  been  so  in  the  first  periods  of  the  war,  when  the  resolution  of 
the  enemy  was  fresh  and  patient,  and  the  Union  was  then^  really  the  apple  of  his 
eye.  But  it  is  when  patience  has  bee^a  worn  threadbare  by  promises ;  when 
expectation  haa  stood  on  tip-toe  until  it  has  ached;  when  the  sentiment  of  Union 
has  lost  all  its  original  inspiration ;  when  "  the  Union'  as  it  was  "  has  become 
more  and  more  impossible  to  the  hopes  of  the  intelligent,  and  the  attempt  to 
realize  it  has  fallen  from  the  resolution  of  a  sovereign  necessity  to  a  mere  prefer- 
ence of  alternatives,  that  we  find  the  enemy  quite  as  likely  to  be  defeated  by  the 
prospect  of  a  prolonged  war,  as  by  the  dint  of  positive  disaster,  and,  in  fact, 
meditating  more  anxiously  the  question  of  Southern  endurance,  than  the  imme- 
diate fortunes  of  any  military  campaign. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  in  these  later  years  of  the  war,  the  North 
is  fighting  for  the  Union  as  the  sine  qua  non,  the  indispensable  thipg.  That 
may  be  thp  elack  of  Yankee  newspapers  and  the  drone  of  demagoguns.  But  I  am 
convinced  to  the  contrary.  It  is  to  be  admitted  that  the  North,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  her  resources  in  this  war,  and  the  discovery  cotemporary  with  it  of 
an  almost  fabulous  wealth  in  her  oil  regions  and  mines,  and  new  fields  of  enter- 
prise opened  along  the  entire  slope  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  has  obtained  a  con- 
fidence which  has  assured  her,  among  other  things,  that,  even  apart  from  the 
South,  she  has  in  herself  the  elements  of  a  great  national  existence.  It  is 
this  swollen  wealth — some  of  it  the  wind-falls  of  a  mysterious  Providence — 
which  has  appeased  much  of  that  avarice  which  formed  so  large  a  share  in  the 
Northern  desire  for  the  Union.     Again,  as  the  war  has  progressed,  it  has  be- 


^^^.^ 


come  more  and  more  obvious — I  may  say  irresistibly  apparent — to  countless  in- 
telligeut  persons  ip  the  North,  that  it  has  wasted  what  is  most  desirable  iu  the 
Union;  destroyed  its  esprit;  left  nothing  to  be  recovered  but  its  shadow,  and 
that  along  with  such  paltry  recovery  of  a  mere  name,  must  be  taken  the  conse- 
quences of  such  despotic  government  as  will  be  necessary  to  hold  two  hosti- 
lized  countries  under  a  common  rule.  It  is  thus  that  the  sentiment  of  the 
Union  has  lost  much  of  its  power  in  the  Xorth.  The  first  fervours  of  the  war 
are  scarcely  now  to  be  discovered  among  a  people  who  have  chosen  to  carry  on 
hostilities  by  the  mercenary  hands  of  foreigners  and  negroes,  and  have  devised 
a  system  of  substitution — a  vicarious  warfare — to  an  extent  that  is  absolutely 
without  parallel  in  the  history  of  any  modern  nation. 

All  persons  in  the  North,  with  the  exception  of  some  hundreds,  tell  you  they 
prefer  the  Union j  it  is  a  universal  desire  spoken  everywhere;  but  spoken  only 
as  a  preference  and  desire,  and  no  longer  as  a  passion  that  insists  upon  an  ob- 
ject which  it 'considers  death  and  ruin  to  dispense  with.  Of  all  who  declare  for 
the  Union,  but  few  will  testify  sincerely  that  they  are  for  it  at  all  hazards  and 
consequences  Whatever  may  be  the  convenient  language  or  the  fulsome  pro- 
testation of  public  opinion  in  the  North,  I  am  persuaded  of  two  things': 

i^'irst,  that  the  North  will  not  insist  upon  the  Union  in  plain  prospect  of  a  war 
indefinitely  prolonged. 

And  second,  that  the  North  will  never  fight  the  war  beyond  that  moderate 
point  of  success  on  the  part  of  the  South,  where  she  would  be  disposed  to  ac- 
commodate the  enemy  with  certain  treaty  favours  which  might  stand  in  lieu  of 
the  old  Union,  and  where  she  would  not.be  quite  confident  enough  in  her  posi- 
tion to  insist  upon  a  severe  independence. 

It  is  thus  that  the  war,  on  the  part  of  the  North,  is  limited  by  contingencies, 
which  are  very  far  short  of  decisive  results  one  way  or  the  other,  and  which 
may  transpire  even  without  any  very  signal  successes  of  our  arms. 

What  I  have  said  of  the  peace  movement  in  the  North  in  the  summer  of 
1864,  before  the  fall  of  Atlanta,  has  its  application  to  other  times.  That  move- 
ment was  simply  the  result  of  a  conviction,  cot  that  the  South  was  about  to  ac- 
complish a  positive  triumph,  but  that  she  was  able  to  endure  the  war  much 
longer  than  had  been  expected,  and  yet  had  not  reached  that  point  of  confi- 
dence where  she  would  not  be  likely  to  make  valuable  concessions  to  the  North 
for  the  early  and  graceful  acknowledgment  of  her  independence.  That  ac- 
knowledgment the  North  was  then  on  the  eve  of  makiag  under  certain  dis- 
guiCii;,  it  iB  tru*;,  of  p'irty  eonvsnitacy,  but  noao  ths  itei  qertairdy  beoau&e  it 


6ou"-ht  decent  excuse  for  the  act.  The  Democratic  party  Was  then  Well-nigh  a 
unit  on  the  subject  of  peace.  "Burn  my  letter,"  wrote  a  distinguished  politi- 
cian of  New  England  to  me;  *^but  when  you  get  to  Richmond,  hasten  to  Presi- 
dent Davis,  and  tell  him  the  Chicago  Convention  means  peace,  and  nothing  but 
peace."  It  was  the  military  events  which  followed  that  interrupted  this  resolu- 
tion, and  showed  how  little  thefe  Was  of  principle  or  of  virtuous  intention  in 
Yankee  parties;  and  with  the  fall  of  Atlanta,  Savannah,  Wilmington  and  Charles- 
ton, and  Sherman's  campaign  of  magnificent  distances,  the  Northern  mind  has 
again  become  inflaoied  with  the  fever  of  new  hopes,  and  clamors  for  uncon- 
ditional war,  when  it  thinks  that  it  is  in  the  last  stages  of  success. 

The  grand  conclusion  to  which  the  observations  I  made  in  the  North  last 
summer  l6ad  is  this  :  that  if  we  can  ever  regain  substantially  nothing  more  than 
the  status  quo  of  seven  months  ago;  if  we  can  ever  present  to  the  North  the  same 
prospect  of  a  long  war  we  did  then,  and  put  before  them  the  weary  task  of  overcom* 
fng  the  fortitude  of  a  brave  people,  we  shall  have  peace  and  independence  in 
our  "rasp.  It  is  a  vulgar  mistake  that  to  accomplish  our  success  in  this  war  we 
have  to  retrieve  all  of  the  past  and  recover  by  arms  all  the  separate  pieces  of  our 
territory.  It  is  to  be  remeipbered  that  we  are  fighting  on  the  defensive,  and 
have  only  to  convince  the  enenay  tiat  we  are  able  to  protect  the  vital  points  of 
our  country  to  compel  him  to  a  peace  in  which  all  is  surrendered  that  he  has 
overrun,  and  all  the  country  that  he  holds  by  the  ephemeral  and  Worthless  title 
of  invasion,  falls  from  him  as  by  the  law  of  gravitation.  The  price  of  our  peace 
has  come  to  be  now  but  a  moderate  measure  of  endeavour — a  measure  I  am  per- 
suaded only  large  enough  to  convince  the  Yankee  of  aoothVr  link  drawn  out  in 
the  prolongation  of  the  war.  Let  but  his  present  animated  hope  of  dispatching 
the  Confederacy  in  a  few  months  be  exploded,  and  I  predict  that  peace  will  be 
the  result ;  for  he  will  have  then  an  occasion  of  discouragement  far  greater  than 
that  of  last  summer,  as  each  later  prolongation  of  the  war  will  bring  with  it  a 
larger  tax  on  patience  and  a  new  train  of  necessities — among  them  the  dreaded 
one  of  conscription,  no  longer  to  be  put  off"  by  the  present  comfortable  expedi- 
ents which  have  reached  their  maximum  in  the  substitution  of  the  foreigner 
and  the  negro. 

My  friends,  it  is  not  extravagant  to  say  that  the  time  has  come  when  only 
such  endeavour  as  will  put  us  in  anything  like  the  situation  we  were  a  few 
months  ago — or  only  such  proof  of  endurance  as  will  convince  the  North  of  an- 
other lease  of  the  war — will  assure  us  peace  and  independence.  I  wish  that  I 
could  iuEert  this  conviction  in  every  fibre  of  the  Southern  mind      Thf.  <9Gk     be 


fore  us  is  not  very  great.  If  we  can  only  regain  the  situation  of  last  summer,  or 
even  if  we  can  only  give  a  proof  to  the  enemy  that  we  are  not  at  the  extremity 
of  our  resources  or  at  the  last  limits  of  resolution- — that  We  are  aVe  and  deter- 
mined to  fight  this  war  indefinitely,  we  have  accomplished  the  important  and 
vital  conditions  of  peace.  And  I  believe  we  can  easily  do  the  first — recover 
substantially,  in  all  important  respects,  the  losses  of  the  past  few  months,  and 
even  add  to  the  sf.atus*qUo  of  last  summer  ne\^  elements  of  advantage  for  us. 
Defeat  Sherman  at  any  stage  short  of  Richmond  and  it  re-opens  and  recovers  all 
the  country  he  has  overrun.  Leave  him  if  you  please  the  possession  of  the  sea- 
ports ;  but  these  have  no  value  to  us  as  ports  of  entry  and  are  but  picket  posts 
in  our  system  of  defences.  His  (Campaign  comes  to  nought  if  he  cannot  reach 
Grant;  nothing  left  of  it  but  the  brilliant  zig-zag  of  a  raid,  vanishing  as  heat 
lightning  iu  the  skies.  Follow  the  consequences  of  Sherman's  misadventure. 
Grant's  army  of  mortgrels  alone,  without  the  looked  for  aid  from  the  Carolinas, 
can  no  more  take  Richmond  than  it  can  surmount  the  sky.  If  that  army  is  the 
only  assailant  of  Richmond,  t^en  the  city  never  was  more  feebly  threatened.  It 
is  true  that  Grant  is  within  a  few  miles  of  our  capital,  when,  this  time  last  year, 
he  was  on  the  Rapidau.  But  that  is  a  fool's  measure  of  danger  ;  for  in  each 
case  we  have' the  same  army  shielding  Richmond,  and  whether  that  shield  is  bro- 
ken ten  or  a  hundred  miles  away  is  of  uo  importance  to  the  interest  it  covers. 
Again,  Grant  had  on  the  Rapidan  the  finest  army  the  enemy  had  ever  put  in 
the  field.  He  has  now  on  the  lines  around  Richmond  the  poorest  army  that 
has  ever  been  assembled  under  the  Yankee  flng;  and  the  last  dregs  of  the  re- 
cruiting offices  have  been  sifted  (iut  to  make  it. 

Is  there  anything  really  desperate  in  our  situation,  unless  to  fools  and  cowards 
w*ho  draw  lines  ou  paper  to  show  how  the  Yankees  are  at  this  place  and  at  that 
place,  and  think  that  this  Cob-Wcb  occupation  of  the  country,  where  the  enemy 
has.  no  garrisons"  and  no  footholds,  indicates  the  extent  of  Yankee  conquest  and 
gives  the  true  measure  of  the  remliantof  the  Confederacy  !  And  yet. this  is  too 
much  the  popular  fashion  of  the  time  in  estimating  the  military  situation.  Men 
are  drawing  for  themselves  pictures  of  despair  out  of  what  are  to  those  who 
think  profouiidly  and  bravely  no  more  important  than  the  passages  of  the  hour— - 

Light  and  shade 
Upon  a  waving  field,  chasing  each  other. 

I  am  determined  to  express  the  truth,  no  matter  how  painful  to  myself  or  un- 
Tpfkome  to  otherfS.     In  th'-   firtt   period*-  of  tbii-  t^ar  who  was  not  proud  of  the 


Confederacy  and  its  heroic  figure  in  history  '.  Yet  now  it  is  to  be  confessed  that 
a  largo  portion  uf  our  people  have  fallen  below  the  standards  of  history,  and 
hold  no  honourable  comparison  with  other  nations  that  have  fought  and  struggled 
for  independence.  It  is  easy  for  the  tongue  of  the  demagogue  to  trip  with  flat- 
tery on  the  theme  of  the  war ;  but  when  we  come  to  the  counsels  of  the  intel- 
ligent the  truth  must  be  told.  We  are  no  longer  responding  to  the  lessons  and 
aspirations  of  history.  You.  sp«ak  of  the  scarcity  of  suljsistence.  But  Prussia' 
in  her  wars,  drained  her  supplies  until  black,  bread  was  the  only  thing  eat  in  the 
king's  palace;  and  yet,  under  Frederick,  she  wdh  not  only  her  independence,  but 
a  position  among  the  Five  Great  Powers  of  Europe.  You  speak  of  the  scarcity 
of  men.  Yet  with  a  force  not  greater  than  that  with  which  We  have  only,  to 
hold  an  invaded  country  and  maintaiu  the  defensive,  Napoleon  fought  his 
splendid  career,  and  completed  a  circle  of  victories  that  touched  the  boundaries 
of  Europe. 

It  is  enough  to  j^icken  the  heart  with  shame  and  vexation  that-  now,  when,  of 
all  thoief,  it  is  most  important  to  convince  the  enemy  of  our  resolution — now, 
when  such  a  course,  'for  peculiar  reasons;  will  insure  our  success — there  are  men 
who  not  only  whine  on  the  streets  about  making  terms  with  the  enemy,  but  in- 
trude their  cowardice  into  the  official  places  of  the  Government,  and  sheltered 
by  secret  sessions  and  confidential  conversations,  roll  the  word  "reconstruction" 
under  the  tongue.  Shame  upon  the  Congress  that  closed  its  doors  that  it  might 
better  consult  of  dishonourable  things  J  Shame  upon  those  leaders  who  should 
encourage  the" people  and  yet  have  broken  down  their  confidence  by  private 
conversations,  and  who,  while  putting  in  newpapers  some  cheap  words  of  patri- 
otism, yet  in  the  same  breath  suggest  their  despair  by  a  suspicious  cant  about 
trusting  in  Providence,  and  ga  ofi"  to  talk  submission  with  their  intimates  in  a 
corner!  Shame  upon  those  of  the  people  who  have  now  no  other  feeling  in  the 
war  than  an  exasperated  selfishness;  who  are  ready  to  sink,  if  they  can  carry 
down  in  their  hands  some  little  trash  of  property  ;  who  will  give  their  sons  to 
the  army,  but  not  their  precious  negro  slaves ;  who  are  for  hurrying  off 
embassies  to  the  enemy  to  know  at  what  price  of  dishonour  they  may  purchase 
some  paltry  remnant  of  their  possessions !  Do  these  men  ever  think  of  the 
retributions  of  history  'i 

When  Cato  the  Younger  was  pursued  to  Utica  by  the  victoriyus  arms  of  Cae- 
sar, Plutarch  relates  of  him  on  this  occasioii  certain  conversations  and  senti- 
ments which  singularly  apply  to  our  own  condition  in  a  beseiged  city,  and  may 
cliacst  ba  taken  zz.  rspoatsd  in  lbs  Btrsstg  of  Riclioacad ; 


"  One  of  the  Coancil,''  writes  riutarch,  •'  observed  tlio  expediencj'  of  a  decree  fori  en- 
franchising; the  slaves,  and  riiany  commended  the  motion.  Cato,  howeyer,  said  :  'He 
Tvo'ild  not  do  that,  because  it'wus  neither  just  nor  lawful  ;  but  s^ch  as  their  masters 
would  voluntarily  discharge,^  he  would' receive,  provided  they  were  of  proper  age  to 
bear  arms  '  This  manj-  promised  to  do  j  and  Cato  withdrew,  after  having  ordered  lists 
to  be  made  out  of  alT  that  should  offer.  *  *  "■•"  *  All  of  the  patrician  order  wi^h 
great  readine.^s  enfranchised  and  armed  their  slaves  ;  but  as  for  the  three  hundred,  who 
dealt  in  traffic  and  loans  of  money  at  high  interest,  and  whose  slaves  were  a  consider- 
able part  of  their  fortune,  the  impression  which  Cato's  speech  had  made  tipon  them  did 
not  last  long.  •  As  some  bodies  readily  receive  heat,  and  as  easily  grow  cold  again  when 
the  fire  is  removed,  so  the  sight  of  Cato  warmed  and  liberalized  these  traders  ;  but 
when  they  came  to  consider  tbe  matter  among  theta3elve.=?,  the  dread  of  Csesar  soon  put 
to  flight  their  revere&ce  for  Cato  and  for  virtue.  For  thus  they  talked  :  '  What  are  we, 
and  what  is  the  man  whose  orders  we  refuse  to  receive?  Is  it  not  C.nesar,  into  whose 
hands  the  whole  power  of  the.  Uoman  empire  is  fallen?  And  surely  none  of  us  is  a 
Scipio,  a  Pompey,  or  a  Cato.  Shall  we,  at  a  time  when  their  tears-  make  all  men  en- 
tertain sentiments  beneath  their  dignity — shall  we,  in  Utica^  fight  for  the  liberty  of 
Rome  T^ith  a  man  against  whom  Cato  and  Pompey  the  Qi-eat  durst  not  make  a  stand  in 
Italy?  Shall  we  enfranchise  our  slaves  to  oppose  C;t?ar,  who  have  no  more  liberty 
.  ourselves  than  that  conqueror  is  pleased  to  leave  us  ?  Ah!  wretches  that. we  are  I  Let 
us  at  last  know  ourselves,  and  send  deputies  to  intercede  with  him  for  mercy.'  *  *  * 
*  Th^y  told  Cato  that  they  had  resolved  to  send  deputies  to  Caesar  to  intercede  first  and 
principally  for  him.  If  that  request  should  not  be  granted,  they  would  have  no  obliea- 
tion  to  him  for  any  favour  to  themselves,  but  as  long  aa  they  had  breath  would  fight  for 
Cato.  Cato  made  his  acknowledgments  for  their  regard,  and  advised  them  to  send  im- 
mediately to  intercede  for  themselves  -For  me,'  said  he,  '  intercede  not.  It  is  fot*  the 
conquered  to  turn  suppliants,  and  for  those  who  have  done  an  injury  to  beg  pardon. 
For  niT  part,  I  have  been  unconquered  through  life,  and  auperiour  in  the  things  I  wished 
to  bej  for  injustice  and  honour  I  am  Cjesar'ij  superiour.'  '' 

The  arguments  of  the  traders  and  time-servers  in  Utica  are  not  unknown  m 
Richmond.  But  shall  we  not  also  find  in  this  city  something  of  the  aspiration 
of  Cato — a  determination,  even  if  we  are  overcome  by  force,  to  be  unconquered 
in  spirit,  and,  in  any  and  all  events^  to  remain  superiour  to  the  enemy — in 
honour. 

I  do  not  speak  to  you,  my  countrymen,  idle  sentimentalisin.  I  firmly  believe 
that  the  great  Commonwealth  of  Virginia,  and  'this  city,  which  has  a  peculiar 
title  to  whatever  there  is  of  good  and  illustrious  report  in  this  war,  have  been 
recently,  and  arp  yet  in  some  measure  on  the  verge  of  questions  which  involve  an 
interest  immeasurably  greater  than  has  yet  been  disclosed  in  this  contest— that 
of  their  historical  and  immortal  honour. 

I  know — I  have  had  opportunities  of  informing  myself — that  there  are  influ- 
ences at  work  to  place,  the  State  of  Virginia,  in  certain  contingencies,  in  com- 
municatien  with  the  public  enemy,  for  terms  of  peace,  which  cannot  be  other. 
wise  than  coupled  with  the  condition  of  her  submission  to  the  Federal  au- 
thority. The  extent  of  this  conspiracy  against  the  honour  of  Virginia  has  been 
screened  by  secret  sessions,  and  been  covered  up  by  half-mouthed  sugges- 
tions, and  the  i/s  and  ands  of  men  who  are  not  yet  ready  to  disclose  their  cor- 


ruption  and  to  spit,  i'roiu  their  iips  the  rotteuncss  iu  their  hearts.  1  kuow  th« 
fashionable  arguments  of  these  men.  "If  there  is  to  be  a  wreck,"  say  they, 
<<  why  not  save  what  we  can  from  it?"  *'  Houour,"  they  say,  *'  is  a  more  rhe- 
torical laurel j"  "Gen.  Lee  talks  like  a  school-girl  w'hen  he  speaks  of  preferring 
to  die  on  the  battle-field  to  getting  the  best  terms  of  submission  he  can ;"  ''  let 
us  be  done  witli  this  sentimental  rubbif-h,  and  look  to*  the  care  of  our  substan- 
tial  interests." 

My  friends,  this  is  nut  rubbish'.  The  glovy  of  Histui  v  i«  indifferent  to 
events  :  it  is  simply  Honour.  The  name  of  Virginia  in  this  war  is  historically 
and  absolutely  inore  important  to  us  than  any  other  element  of  the  contest ;  and 
the  coarse  time-servet  who  would  sell  an  immortal  title  of  honour  as  a  trifling 
sentimentalism,  and  who  has  constantly  in  his  mouth  the  phrase  of  "  substantial 
interests,'^  is  the  inglorious  wretch  who  laughs  at  history  and  grovels  in  the  cal- 
culations of  the  brute. 

Those  who  haae  lived  entirely  iu  the  South'siuco  the  commencement  of  this 
war  have  little  idea  of  the  measure  of  honour  which  Virginia  has  obtained  in 
it,  and  the  consideration  she  has  seciived  iu  the  eyes  of  the  world.  'One  away 
from  home  finds  even  in  intercourse  with  our  enemies,  that  the  name  of  Virgi- 
niao  IS  an  ornament  to  him,  and  that  the  story  of  yfthis  her  heroic  capital— ^the 
record  of  Richmond — is  universally  accepted  in  two  hemispheres  as  the  most 
illustrious  episode  of  the  war.  Honour  such  as  this  is  not  apiece  of  rhetoric  or 
a  figure  of  speech;  it  is_  something 'to-be  cherished  under  all  circumstances,  and 
to  be  preserved  in  all  events. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  I  regard  subjugation  but  as  the  vapour  of 
our  fears.  But  if  remote  posisibilities  are  to  be  regarded,  I  have  simply  to  say, 
that  in  all  events  and  extremities,  all  chances  and  catastrophes,  I  am  for  Vir- 
ginia going  down  to  history,  proudly  and  starkly,  with  the  title  of  a  subjugated 
people — a  title  not  inseparable  from  true  glory,  and  which  has  often  claimed  the 
admiration  of  the  world — rather  than  as  a  people  who  ever  submitted,  and  bar- 
tered their  honour  for  the  mercy  of  an  enemy — in  our  -case  a  mercy  whose  pit- 
tance  would  be  as  a  mess  of  pottage  weighed  against  an  immortal  patrimony  1 

The  issue  I  would  put  before  you  is:  \No  Submission ;  No  State  Negotiations 
with  the  Enemy ;  No  Conventions  for  suoh  objects,  however  proper  for  others. 
Let  Virginia  stand  or  fall  by  the  fortunes  of  the  Confederate  arms,  with  her 
spotless  honour  in  her  hands. 

If  Virginia  accepts  the  virtuous  and  noble  alternative,  she  saves,  in  all  events, 
her  honour,  and  by  the  resolution  which  it  implies,  may  hope  to  secure  a  positive 
and  glorious  victory ;  and  I,  among  the  humblest  of  her  citizens,  will  be  proud 
to  associate  myself  with  a  fate  which,  if  not  happy,  at  least  can  never  be  ignoble. 
But,  if  she  chooses  to  submit,  and  make  terms  for  Yankee  clemency,  the  satis- 
faction will  at  least  remain  to  me  of  not  sharing  in  tlie  dishonour  of  my  native 
State,  and  of  going  to  other  parts  of  the  world,,  where  I  may  say :  "  I,  too,  was 
a  Virginian,  but  not  of  those  who  sold  the  jewels  of  her  history  for  the  baubles 
and  cheats  of  her  conquerours.'^ 

EDWARD.  A  POLLARD. 


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